Grace Santorini
- Santorini

Overview

Grace Santorini hotel is a gleaming white minimalist marvel, carved out of a clifftop on Greece’s sunset paradise. Tottering up the cliff face, the hotel is steeply spread over different levels, with views of Skaros Rock's good side and a chalky restaurant taking up its own floor. The party scene extends to the lengthy infinity pool’s terrace by night, when all that glitters comes to life.

Highlights:

Caldera views from your private plunge pool

Simple, stylish design: whitewash at its best

Cocktails and cuisine to enjoy as the sun sets

Smith extra

A bottle of sparkling wine

In the know

Also need to know:

Guests staying in a suite or the villa get a bottle of champagne and strawberries in their room on arrival. Daily free pilates and yoga classes are held in the resort's second-floor studio, by the boutique fitness room. Souvenir-seekers should steer themselves towards the resort's concept store, which sells artwork, floaty garments by super-cool Greek designers Zeus + Dione, and crafty trinkets from the Cycladic Art Museum. Local artwork is displayed in the champagne lounge too. Make your stay even more luxurious with the hotel's Bespoke by Grace service, which allows guests to customise their stay with a pillow menu, choice of fragrances and bath products, bespoke in-room cocktail kit and a personal fitness kit.

Packing tips:

Brightly coloured outfits to set off your suite; it’s hard to clash with whitewash.

Dress code:

Sparkly and sexy; and no bare legs for gents after dark, please.

Mr and Mrs Smith reviews

When it comes to jaw-dropping views, there are some places in this world that have a blithe disregard for the rules of fair play. From the get-go, they seize the high ground and bludgeon you into submission with impossibly gorgeous vistas. Some literally take your breath away with their high-altitude scenery – Namaste, Bhutan! – while others convince you that you’ve passed through into another dimension altogether. The latter is more or less how we felt the first time Mr Smith and I stepped onto the spacious patio at Santorini Grace and stared out over the famous volcanic caldera.

Shaped like a crescent moon, the island embraces a vast blue lagoon created thousands of years ago when devastating volcanic explosions caused the centre of the island to collapse into the sea. Almost every vantage point along the high-cliffed inner edge of the crescent bristles with crowds of white buildings. In high summer, it’s blinding. Here and there, blue cupolas mark a chapel, while slashes of azure, visible from the narrow paths that wind their way through the terraced buildings, invariably indicate the swimming pool of a hotel.

On Santorini, location is everything. Oía, the picturesque town at the northern tip of the island, suffers from an overabundance of tourists and streets clogged with tour buses. Thera, in the island’s centre, is equally crowded. Happily, the Grace is set a leisurely 40-minute walk from Thera in a quiet enclave of hotels (catering from low- to high-end budgets). Here, the illusion of seclusion is complete, especially when the morning mists shroud the high ground.

But that afternoon, as we checked in, Santorini lay before us in Olympus-like majesty, the soft rustling wind riding over the low Buddha Bar tracks piped over the stereo. Far below us in the caldera, we saw three cruiseships tooling around the flat sapphire water like little fat baby whales. A mesmerising stillness hung over the blue-tinged air.

It’s a view that, even four days later, we never tired of. ‘I don’t ever want to leave,’ I said at the end of the first day as we closed the shuttered double-glazed windows. And why would you ever need to? The Grace is one of those hotels that conspires to keep you happily captive: If you ever wondered what it feels like to be a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, this would be the place to try it.

The hotel’s 20 rooms, gym, restaurant, library, swimming pools and sundecks are terraced into the side of the cliff in a cascade of white walls and black rock buttresses. Inside, the rooms are sheathed entirely in white, and the flooring in cool polished grey concrete. Shelving, bedside tables and seats are hewn straight into the rock giving the space a very pleasing Francis of Assisi meets Four Seasons monastic feel. Our bed is a vast tract of white linen floating over triple mattress layers of coconut and rubber, all cushioned by layers of plump pillows; while the huge rainshower-studded ensuite is stocked with attention-grabbing bath and body products by local Greek brand Apivita.

Aromatherapy pillow ordered from the pillow menu, Mr Smith sighed at the view of the caldera through the bevelled windows. ‘Or should I get the goosedown instead?’ I wondered aloud, impressed by the gravity of such Solomon-like decisions.

And that was pretty much the pattern of our days. When we weren’t bobbing gently in the outdoor heated Jacuzzi, we lay supine under the sun umbrellas next to beds of lavender abuzz with lazy fat bumblebees. The April weather was still a little too cold to dip into one of the two spectacular pools that stretch out on separate levels. ‘Maybe we should stay on until the weather turns really hot?’ I suggested hopefully over our breakfast of Greek yoghurt with nuts and blossom honey, and poached eggs.

One morning, stirred by an uncharacteristic burst of energy, we descended the broad donkey steps next to the resort, past a bijoux 15th-century chapel and then we climbed up towards Scarpa, an irregular nub of a cliff that was once the island’s capital before an earthquake destroyed it.

These days, the natural drama is entirely botanical. The cliffs were festooned with yellow daisies and bursts of purple flowers. A gentle breeze rocked the sea below. We sat on a pile of shale and looked out over the Aegean, imagining that the fabled city of Atlantis – long rumoured to have been located in Santorini – had been just there in the little alcove where a cruiseliner now anchored.

It was a little surreal, too, to think that back in London at that very moment, Prince William was getting hitched to Kate. ‘I hope they’ll be happy,’ I mumbled shielding my eyes from the sun’s glare. We sat in companionable silence. Seagulls wheeled overhead and the breeze carried up the scent of grass and the approaching summer.

Presently, Mr Smith said, ‘Come on, then. Time for lunch.’

Accommodation details

Address:

Imerovigli, Santorini, Greece, 84700SantoriniGreece

Location:

1.0 mi / 1.6 km from city centre

General facilities

Pool

Spa

Exercise gym

Internet services

Complimentary in-room coffee or tea

Room service

Lounges/bars

Onsite laundry

Restaurant

Dining information

Restaurant:

Intimate restaurant, Santoro, with its high-domed ceiling, serves up contemporary Greek cuisine courtesy of accolade-awarded chef, Spiros Agious: pan-seared octopus with grass-fed beef fillet and Apiliotis wine reduction, fava bean- and Volaki cheese-stuffed gyoza, and lamb fricassee with preserved lemons and lime foam. There’s an open kitchen on show, and more of the same whitewashing and liquid black lava rock. Or, grab light meals and cocktails by the pool; we love the sea-view booths. The ultra-fresh yellowfin tuna sandwich and oh-so tender lamb burger are the stand-out stars of the menu. Breakfasts are bountiful five-course feasts which change frequently, so guests can try something new every day. Day one: Cretan-style pancakes with Xinomizithra cheese and thyme honey; day two: eggs Benedict washed down with a piña colada smoothie; day three: spinach-and-feta-filled spanakopita pie…

Top Table:

For a snug supper, ask for either of the two cosy alcoves overlooking the infinity pool and caldera bay.

Last Orders:

Breakfast is on offer from 8am until 11.30am, when lunch service takes over until 7pm. Dinner is then available in Santoro right up until 11pm. The champagne lounge opens till midnight.

Room Service:

Breakfast and an all-day snack menu (salads, pizzas and puddings) can be ordered between 8am and 11pm.

Hotel Bar:

The pool bar expands from the restaurant, with half facing inwards to the kitchen and the rest spilling out to the infinity pool. Sit back to the sounds of Greek jazz and sip a speciality cocktail. The Champagne Lounge (set above the restaurant) has contrasting interiors of sleek cream upholstery and rugged black volcanic stone. Set a soaring 363 metres above sea level, the caldera views from the terrace will make you feel giddier than the bar's lengthy list of champagnes and cocktails. Signature drink the Grace Rose (devised by connoisseur Spyros Efstathiou) is a heady concoction of Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé, Grey Goose vodka, lemon, raspberries and rose water; the second signature drink, the Grace Cocktail (dreamt up by the equally au fait Salvatore Calabrese) is a blend of Grey Goose pear-infused vodka, lemongrass, honey, mint and fruit juice that's fabulously refreshing in the heat. Chef Spiros Agious' snack list is joy-inducing, with bottarga- (salted cod roe) and caviar-topped bites, freshly shucked oysters, cheese and charcuterie platters and hearty salads. Live music nights are hosted regularly at both Santoro and the Champagne Lounge.